People make out the Greeks to be worse because they're the ones who one but if they hadn't the Trojans would've done the same thing to them their women and their children
This is just the culture they had , and if your adapting these books with these cultures why tone it down ? Why have interest in the books in the first place ?
Adapt it with the nuances that exist , good and bad
Okay I am not sure what you try to say with the first half dear Anon but I suppose you mean "the ones attacking" well under that logic wasn't the Trojans that provoked the attack in the first place? Weren't the Trojans the ones that rejected the peaceful solutions the Greeks suggested before the battles (I remind you in the Iliad we hear on the embassy that was sent to Troy with Odysseus and Menelaus as primary factors) and not only that but they also tried to murder the ambassadors or at least one of them suggested it which was one other great no no to add on top of the Xenia disrespect and also robbing the host blind.
And so on and so forth. I am fully aware of the reason why Greeks are depicted like that in modern day adaptations and I have said that in other analysis or answers as well. It is a variety of reasons;
The analogy of attacker and defender where in modern day mentality the attacker is always the bad one or the one more in the wrong and the defender is almost always more on the right scale (which of course has plenty of logic but still not always as it is)
The Greeks are the main focus of the Iliad so we have more scenes with them including more negative scenes as well as positive
The recent obsession of trying to....demoralize anything Greek. Quite frankly I notice more and more the tendency of society especially English spoken sources, to literally "deconstruct" the whole narrative of Greece as a total. That the ancient Greece everyone admired and spoke of for eons is not really THAT important and that it needs to be re-evaluated
The general re-evaluation of warrior societies (particularly European ones) in our research department but also in modern day media probably to pass an anti-war message to society but that sometimes happens with the price of villainizing sometimes the ancient societies based on our modern day evaluations
And so on and so forth. Ironically even the Iliad itself didn't do such a thing. In the Iliad we have as I said moments where Trojans are not angels just like the Greeks.
The Trojans started the conflict when their prince disrespected the law of Xenia and even robbed his host blind and took his wife with him
The Trojans perpetuated the war by refusing the peaceful reconciliation
They tried to murder the ambassadors or at least one tried to persuade the others doing it potentially bribed by Paris himself who was one of the starters of all this.
They refused to keep the oath they themselves swore when before the obvious loss of Paris to the duel with Menelaus was not respected using the godly intervention of Aphrodite as their proof
Hector had no problem kill an unarmed and stunned man (obviously. This is war after all)
Hector probably had no problem bribing a man (Dolon) with a rather impossible promise (the horses of Achilles) to send him spy at the opposite side in the middle of the night when everyone was sleeping
The Trojans seemingly tried to claim the body of Patroclus obviously for either keeping or desecration of it so that Pateoclus wouldn't be getting heroic funeral (there was a literal battle over his body even after his armor was long stripped off him)
They had no problem surrounding one man and outnumber him by multiples (Odysseus or Diomedes before him)
And so on and so forth. So for once even the Iliad itself is not showing Greeks negatively and Trojans positively (yet alone other later sources like Dares the Phrygian where we even see the TROJANS start gathering fleet and organizing attack first because Priam got report his ambassador was not respected because he was not heard on upon returning Hesione) so even then it is overly simplified.
But as you said we speak on technically people who indeed would definitely do the same (and in some cases we do as you see) but I have to say nuance doesn't mean you just show the bad side of someone and then call out "oh but it was a different time". That is technically showing the bad side of the other.
I guess what I am trying to say is that of course we must show the bad sides of people in their stories as intended but at the same time not looking exclusively on how one can show the bad side, you know? Nuance is that yes one character has their bad side has their good side like every human being but not that the one is over the other.
For instance Hector. Yes he loves his wife and son, yes he defends his city, yes he can show respect to his opponent but he can also run before an enemy, he can brag his win, he can bribe someone to do the dirty job, yes he can place a sword in someone that was stripped naked by a god in the middle of the battlefield etc
Nuance would be me showing Hector do every one of that and still present him as the intended king. Nuance is not for me to depict him as a coward arrogant bastard who bribes people all the time or brags all the time and that he takes heads of people. That is not Nuance that is just me being unfair to a character (which is how characters like Agamemnon are treated by the way). So yes that is what I wanted to say.
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